Talk:List of sovereign states/Discussion of criteria/Archive 8

Change to division criterion

I have reverted this change because:

• I'm not convinced that the UN has the power to recognise states of its own initiative. If not, the phrase "states recognized by the United Nations" has no meaning. State membership is determined by vote of the member states alone, and I believe it is the states that recognise, not the UN.
• I believe that the inference that the UN recognises the Cook Islands and Niue, without evidence other than a map that says outright that no such implication exists, is a breach of WP:NOR. The same would be true if we were inferring recognition from membership of a given UN agency.
• I believe that the current criterion is better because it gives a result that is far more clear-cut, that will never need to rely on such inference.

Kahastok talk 21:25, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I gather that this relates once again to the ongoing discussion concerning the Cook Islands and Niue. The United Nations Secretariat has indicated over the years that it recognizes the treaty-making capacity of these two States in the compilation of Multilateral Treaties as to which the Secretariat performs depository functions. I have the hard-copy compilation somewhere, or can probably find a link to an online version if it is needed. Some States have reached the same conclusion by entering into treaties with the Cook Islands and Nieu (particularly the Cook Islands). At the same time, the Cook Islands and Niue continue to allow New Zealand to perform some functions for them that could be considered aspects of sovereignty.

The bottom line is that the Cook Islands and Niue have many of the attributes of sovereign states, but not necessarily each and every attribute. Whether to include them on this list is an exercise in line-drawing, which should be resolved one way or the other for at least some period of time in the interest of stability and allowing people to work on other things, and which should not become a basis for ongoing quarerelling among editors. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

In principle, the lines have been drawn and settled for a good while now. Both the Cook Islands and Niue went into the list as a whole because we could demonstrate recognition from other states - thus they met a strict reading of our inclusion criteria. It was a close call, particularly in the case of Niue, but that was the call made. I don't see much appetite in above discussion to reopen the question and I certainly am not trying to.

They went in the second half of the list because they are neither UN member states nor UN observer states. This standard resulted from a process of dispute resolution that took well over a year and was deliberately chosen as an unambiguous line. One may disagree with the positioning of the line - it was always a compromise - but it is very difficult to disagree with the positioning of a state relative to the line. The edit that I'm objecting to WP:BOLDly moved the line to "States recognized by the United Nations". Again, I have no particular desire to reopen the point and I don't believe the bulk of editors here do. I believe the consensus will support the clear standard that we compromised on before, if only on the basis that there is no good reason to reopen the point. My intention in opening discussion is merely, having reverted, to fulfil my part in WP:BRD. Kahastok talk 22:09, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Arguing whether the United Nations recognizes states or not requires splitting hairs thinner. The UN General Assembly - which is the main organ for expressing the consensual views of its member states - has taken positions about the legality of some declarations of independence (cfr. Northern Cyprus) and has refused to consider membership applications based on de facto situations (cfr. Taiwan). Whether this is comparable to the prerogatives of individual states to recognize or not recognize other states is, in my view, not really a matter that has much relevance to the organization of this list (at the present time, at least).

My reason for refusing to accept Soffredo's proposed change is that the division is not really accurate. The change made places nine states (namely Kosovo, TNRC, Pridnestrovie, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakhn, SADR, Somaliland and ROC) in a proposed "not recognized by the UN" category. How do we know all of those are not recognized by the United Nations? (whatever "not recognized" means in terms of international law). Do we have any sources that tell us that Somaliland, SADR or Abkhazia are not recognized by this organization? Rather, most of these states are in a situation in which the UN has not taken a position regarding their statehood, which is completely different from what is being proposed. This is why lumping them into a single "not recognized" category is erroneous. If the list ought to have a division it should be along the clearly delimited criterion of organization membership, not something which is hard to determine (such as "recognition"). Ladril (talk) 16:26, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Kahastok and Ladril. This seems a well-intentioned change, but I'm not sure it works. UN membership is a clear, permanent and measurable criterium that we can use to list countries. There may be a case for listing Cook Islands, Niue and Kosovo in a mid-way category ("Member of some UN organisations") which fits in-between "UN Member/Observer" and "Other States" Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 18:46, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

There's also the problem of newly-independent states, which has emerged in the past and could also emerge again in the future (the South Sudan case a couple of years ago comes to mind). Classifying them as "not recognized" just because the UN has not enacted a vote to accept them would be erroneous and misleading. Ladril (talk) 19:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion: Add everything into one list

There's no point of having a separate "UN members and observers" list from the "Other states". Many projects based on this page consider the Cook Islands and Niue as unrecognized states due to their placement in the article. (Example) Originally, I made the page split into "States recognized by the UN", adding a new green Non-member state status and "Other states", but then I merged every country into one list. There were four UN statuses: UN member (193; white), UN observer (2; yellow), recognized non-member (2; green), and unrecognized (9; red). My edits were undone, so I decided to bring the discussion here. For what my idea would look like, see this. [Soffredo] 19:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

The comments in the section #Change to division criterion address your points in part. Notably, you are creating a category of "recognized non-member states" of the UN, which as discussed there are impossible to define. You infer this category from a source that tells you very clearly not to infer any such category from it.

The current split is in place as the result of a years-long discussion and dispute resolution. I see no new arguments that make me feel that it is a good idea to reopen the point. My own position, strenuously opposing the notion that claimed states that are near-universally rejected should be given equal validity with states that are near-universally accepted (which is what you propose) remains unchanged from the previous discussion. You may read the detail in the archives, which start here and continue here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. There's a lot of text there. I think it's fair to say that most here don't want more.

I see nothing in your link that gives me cause for concern. They do not even seem to reference this page. It is only for us to put the facts neutrally. It is not for us to tell people what to think. Kahastok talk 22:13, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

This has been said before, but apparently it bears repeating for everyone's benefit: every single alternative that has been proposed since the current structure came into effect was considered (and discussed to death) during the very extended debate that led to it. The current setup is the one we could agree works best for the purposes of the list. It is very unlikely to change unless somebody comes up with something brilliant beyond words or can somehow produce really, really persuasive arguments in favour of a previously-discussed scheme. The energy users spend trying to change the current setup could be better spent working on some of the other political geography articles on Wikipedia (many of which still need quite a lot of work). Ladril (talk) 01:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

We could also leave Niue and the Cook Islands in the "Other states" section, but give them a green "Recognized non-member" status. [Soffredo] 17:18, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The thing is, even though CI and Niue have been accepted as members of UN specialized agencies, establishing "UN recognition" of them as states probably would require a vote by the General Assembly (which has not taken place; so once again, this goes back to the question of how to determine whether they are "recognized by the UN" or not). This would also mean that the criteria for organizing the table would be switched from "membership" to "membership plus recognition" which would be problematic for the reasons stated previously (not to mention that similar ideas were also discussed and finally dismissed in the previous mega-debate about how to organize the page). Ladril (talk) 21:58, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Why would an establishment of "UN recognition" by the General Assembly be needed? Here is a source that shows that the UN recognizes CI and Niue as the only two non-member states (not including observers). And the switch could simply be "States recognized by the United Nations" and "Other states", as stated in my original post. [Soffredo] 00:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

As has been mentioned before, that source explicitly claims not to represent the official view of the United Nations, so it cannot be taken as sufficient evidence of recognition. We all are very much aware of it, but decided it was not enough. Ladril (talk) 00:43, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

What Ladril said. When your only source explicitly states: "DRAFT - NOT YET APPROVED FOR DISTRIBUTION OR PUBLICATION" and "The designations employed and the presentation of material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or any area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries" then it's WP:UNDUE to present this information as undisputed facts. The status of CI and Niue is very complicated, and trying to pigeonhole them into oversimplistic simple categories doesn't acurately reflect the sources. TDL (talk) 01:01, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

MOTION (WITH COPY TO ARCHIVER): would it be possible to archive this thread under "discussion of criteria" and add the previous thread titled "Niue and Cook Islands - July 2013" to the corresponding Cook Islands and Niue archive as soon as they end? It's getting tiresome to have to make these same points so many times over, so it would be good to have these discussions as reference for the (unavoidable) future debates on these subjects. Ladril (talk) 14:55, 24 July 2013 (UTC) Edit: the "Change to division criterion" thread would also be a good one to archive. Ladril (talk) 14:58, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Totally agreed! I think it's moving beyond tiresome... Timothy Titus ^{Talk To TT} 18:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)